Jenny and I met up at the International Ferry Terminal and were
soon on board the Commodore Goodwill. We had a quick chat with
Captain Wjociech Pielich who told us we were welcome on the bridge
at any time and advised us that as we were due into St Helier at
about 05:45 we might see the sunrise behind the port on our
approach - the forecast looking good for our survey on the return
leg.

I had seen news that there had been 2500 Arctic Tern past
Dungeness during the day and as we made our way out of Portsmouth
we passed a feeding flock of gulls and terns alongside the aircraft
carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. We had high hopes that there might be
some migrant seabirds on the move in the Channel for our
survey.

Sandwich Tern (Peter Howlett)

We were up on the bridge just before we docked in St Helier and,
as Captain Pielich predicted, there was a very nice sunrise. We
whiled away the two hour stop in St Helier on deck, looking for
wildlife. There appeared to be a trickle of Swallow moving north
and the odd Swift circled around overhead feeding. There was the
usual constant 'kleeping' from the Oystercatcher dotted around
Elizabeth Castle and a dozen Common Tern hovering around one of the
stacks.

A swift loading saw us depart at 07:50 and we began our survey
as soon as we had cleared the Elizabeth Castle breakwater. We kept
a sharp eye open for any sign of the Bottlenose Dolphin that can
appear around St Helier but there was no sign on this occasion, and
the bridge crew hadn't had any recent sightings either.

Swift (Peter Howlett)

Conditions were kind and it was a lovely day to be at sea but
sadly, apart from the usual rush of Gannet as we passed between
Alderney and Cap de la Hague, there were very few birds to be seen.
A brief glimpse of a solitary Harbour Porpoise abeam Sark was the
only cetacean sighting of the trip too. Although that was an
improvement on last month when we didn't have any cetacean
sightings at all.

We finished the survey as we turned into the main shipping
channel off the SE corner of the Isle of Wight and enjoyed the view
from the bridge as we steamed past Southsea and into
Portsmouth.

Our thanks to Captain Pielich and his crew for making this a
very enjoyable trip and to Condor for their continued support of
MARINElife's work.